100 French public intellectuals sign pamphlet rejecting ‘Islamism’. Good stuff, so we translated it

On 19 March French newspaper Le Figaro published a pamphlet titled “No against Islamist Separatism“, signed by 100 French intellectuals, denouncing “a new totalitarianism threatening freedom in general.”

What follows is a translation of the entire pamphlet, with the most notable segments highlighted:

“We are citizens with different opinions, and very often find ourselves opposing one another, who have agreed to express, regardless of what is currently in the news, their concern in the face of the rise of Islamism. It is not our similarities that bind us, but the feeling of the danger to freedom in general and not just the freedom of thought. What binds us today is of a more fundamental nature than that which will undoubtedly separate us tomorrow.

The new Islamist totalitarianism seeks to win ground by any means, and [seeks to] pass for a victim of intolerance. One could observe this strategy when the Teacher’s Union SUD Éducation 93 offered, a few weeks ago, a training course, including workshops on ‘racism by the state’ which were forbidden for ‘whites’. Certain hosts were members or sympathisers of the Collective against Islamophobia in France and of the Party of the indigenous people of the Republic. These kinds of organisations have been multiplying lately. From them, we have learned that the best way to combat racism is to separate the ‘races’. If that idea clashes with ours, it is because we are Republicans.

We also hear it said that, because religions are violated in France by an ‘instrumentalised’ Laïcité, we must give to that which is in the minority, which is to say, to Islam, a special place so it ceases to be humiliated. The same line of thinking continues: by covering themselves with a veil, women protect themselves from men and by setting themselves apart in this way, they are able to set themselves free.

What these proclamations have in common, is the thought that the only way of defending the ‘dominated’ (not our choice of words, but that of the SUD Éducation 93), is to separate them from others and grant them privileges.

It wasn’t long ago, that Apartheid reigned in South Africa. Based on a segregation of the blacks, it sought to exonerate itself by creating Bantustans, which were given a fictional autonomy. A system that fortunately has disappeared.

But here today, there is a new kind of Apartheid proposed for France, a segregation turned on its head, by which the ‘dominated’ preserve their dignity by sheltering themselves from the ‘dominant’.

However, would that mean that a woman who removes the veil and goes out into the street reverts to being a normal prey? Would that mean that a ‘group’ that rubs shoulders with others is humiliated by that? Would that mean saying that a religion that accepts being one amongst others loses face?

And the French Muslims, or those with an Islamic cultural background who are not believers, that love democracy and want to live with everybody, is Islamism planning to set them apart, them as well? And the women who refuse to be locked up, who will decide for them? And the others, who seemingly do not seem to deserve protection: are they to be thrown in together in the camps of the ‘dominant’?

Text in Le Figaro

All this goes against everything that has been done in France to guarantee the civil peace. Since long, the unity of this country is founded on indifference towards the particularities that may conflict. What is called ‘republican universalism‘ consists not of a denial of the sexes, of race or of religion, but in defining a civil space independent of them, so that nobody is excluded. And how can one not see that Laïcité also protects minority religions? By putting it in danger, we risk a return to the Wars of Religion.

Who is served by this segregation in the new style? Is it simply to permit the ‘dominated’ to safeguard their purity by living amongst themselves? Is it not primarily to affirm the secession from the national community, its laws and its mores? Is it not a most characteristic expression of the hatred towards our country and democracy?

That each lives by the law of his community, or of his cast, and filled with contempt for those of others, that none is judged, but by his peers, this is contrary to the spirit of the Republic. This was founded on a refusal of private rights that apply to specific and exclusive categories, on the abolition of privileges. On the contrary, the same laws for every one of us, that is what the Republic guarantees us. It is what is simply called justice.

The new separatism advances undercover. It wants to appear benign, but in reality, it is the weapon with which political and cultural Islamism seeks to conquer. Islamism seeks to be separate, because it rejects others, which includes Muslims that do not share its ideas. Islamism detests the sovereignty of democracy, because it denies its legitimacy completely. Islamism feels humiliated just because it is not dominant.

There is no question of accepting this. We want to live in an undivided world, where the two sexes can regard each other without being insulted by the presence of the other. We want to live in an undivided world, where women are not deemed inferior because of their nature. We want to live in an undivided world, where people can mingle without fear. We want to live in an undivided world where no religion prescribes the law.”